The more Resistance we feel towards a call or action, the more important that call or action is to our soul’s evolution.
About ten years ago, my brother gave me two books for Christmas…. or maybe it was my birthday. Either way, one of them was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
I took The War of Art to the shelf to put it away and noticed something strange: I already had it.
I couldn’t remember where I had got it from and although I was pretty sure it was one of my parents, neither would own up.
Now, when I look back, I find that funny: I had so much Resistance to reading Pressfield’s masterwork on Resistance (his word for the force that stops us doing the things that we are called to do) that I had to be given the book twice before I read it!
In Joseph Campbell’s words: I had the call to adventure, refused it, and then the call came back.
And what a call.
Another way to look at that story is that we can be taught the same messages at different times, but we aren’t always ready to hear them.
But in that moment, I was ready.
And amongst many aspects of The War of Art that matter to me, the most meaningful is this.
Pressfield’s Rule of Thumb for Resistance which, as I like to slightly paraphrase it, is: the more Resistance we feel towards a call or action, the more important that call or action is to our soul’s evolution.
One of the reasons I love Pressfield’s work is that he doesn’t shy away from that language: his work is simultaneously both practical and spiritual.
I read that rule of thumb, and The War of Art as a whole, and I had a sense that he was right.
But as I look at my own life today, I just can’t believe how right. I can’t believe what can happen when we face the places of our greatest Resistance.
I trusted Pressfield enough to try.
Almost nine years ago, I felt an enormous Resistance to sharing myself with the world. An agonising combination of longing and fear would consume me and twist me into inaction.
On anything from writing a joke on facebook to singing at karaoke to, more significantly in my life, talking about my new coaching business.
And certainly to sharing things I had created. Things I had written.
But I had read The War of Art and I remembered the Rule of Thumb. And I was in coaching, so I had somewhere to take the situation I was grappling with.
And my coach and I designed a practice: write while the train is moving, stop when it stops, proof read it once and post it online.
Resistance, fear, anxiety… and a bloody-minded belief in Pressfield’s Rule of Thumb and the value of courage.
And then, my soul evolved.
Rolling outwards…
Creating outputs that changed me: hundreds of blog posts, four books and more…
Creating transformations in me: in how I feel, how I think, how I speak, how I relate to myself…
Creating opportunities I couldn’t have imagined: sitting in a room full of the future leaders of a huge retail company, watching them write with a 12-minute timer, combining it with the psycological development theories that are one of the most powerful models I have learned about for helping people cope with the challenges of complexity… and only being there because I ran a workshop about the 12-Minute Method at a book festival and one of the company’s leadership development team came with her mother on a Sunday afternoon.
As Campbell might say: when we are on purpose, doors open for us where no one else would see a door.
So from this end of the hero’s journey I can say: it is worth it.
Facing the necessary terror of growth, crossing the threshold.
And wherever that necessary terror is greatest: that could be the place that is most important for your soul’s evolution.
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PS The latest episode of The Coach’s Journey Podcast isn’t really about coaching, and is definitely not JUST for coaches - it’s about an amazing charity, GiveDirectly, that is close to my heart because its values and how it goes about its work is so aligned with mine and how I go about it. And because it’s work is amazing. The episode focuses on an interview with Stephanie Hill, GiveDirectly’s VP, People, who brings her sharp thinking and years of experience how people learn and grow to bear. I hope you might listen, and I hope you might give some money, directly, to the poorest people in the world: https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/95-stephanie-hill-from-givedirectly-empowering-through-trust-coaching-cash-and-lasting-impact
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.